


I Believe in a Thing Called Love

by Messypeaches



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Eventual Smut, M/M, Multi, Unfinished, Work In Progress, in need of abeta reader, none at the moment., slow burn sorry, this is what happens when I find issues with things I like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:50:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messypeaches/pseuds/Messypeaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie's been obsessed with folk tales, cyrptozoology and myths since he was four. Meeting the guardians and the boogy man all in one night didn't make normal any more appealing. He's always been smart though, and there's got to be a career out there where frank discussions of magic and belief don't count against you, and he's going to college to find it.<br/>--</p>
<p>Jack's smart enough to know something's wrong, and he's hoping Jamie's smart enough to help him figure it out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When the first child tottered into the dark and never came back, the other children were told not to do that. when the second child did it, the parents got more creative.</p>
<p>Like it or  not, Pitch had a job to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: In the Beginning

_"You and the moon and the sandman, the oldest ones. You think you'd get along better."_

_Pitch ran his fingers through the nightmares mane, didn't look up. He was so tired. So very damn tired. "I wondered why..." he said. "_

_The Nightmare nuzzled him. It was weak. He was all out of fear, and they'd turned on each other. Viciously. And this weak thing was the survivor. Now it curled next to him and he stroked its mane and felt the strands slip through his fingers. "I wondered why I hesitated. Why someone so... New and young was so strong against _me_."_

_"You were the oldest thing imagined... What was that like?"_

_"I'm still the oldest thing imagined," Pitch said._

_"I'd hoped five years would have you weaker than this," the voice sighed. "But I need you out of the way."_

_"Something like_ you _can't kill_ me _," Pitch growled, twisting, hands down, pushing. "The moon can't erase me, you sure as hell can't," he said, trying to stand. Struggling and failing to get higher than his knees._

_"I might as well be the god of poets, you think I can't come up with something more narratively satisfying than your death?"_

_Pitch realized what was happening in time to do..._

_Nothing. No way to stop it. Too weak to fight it._

_He curled under the heat, an ant under the microscope, and only the core of what he was survived._

__


	2. Set up.

So it started with a death.

If you go back further, it started with Pitch being defeated. Further than that, if you kept going, something started when Jack refused to join forces with the Boogeyman. When disappointment stabbed Pitch in the heart.

Something probably started the day the ice broke, but that was a different chapter in the story of the avatars of beliefs. If you didn't pick a reasonable starting place, you'd end up back at the dawn of man, when the first child walked off into the night and never came back, leaving the rest of the family to think up a reason. Something to tell the second child, who would pass it to the third.

That reason had been a predator in the darkness, and while he's important to this story, his origins are unimportant. Or maybe not. Stories have a way of writing themselves.

******

"What's the tooth fairies core?" Jamie asked.

Jack was vibrating on the windowsill. It'd be too dark to play in another hour but homework didn't do itself, and Jamie'd asked that he not do too many more snowdays. Something about saving them for midterms and not wanting to have to go to school in mid June.

No one had ever told Jack that days missed were made up in the summer. Personally summer seemed like a great time to do schoolwork but Jack was big enough to admit when he was biased.

He'd been staring at the clock.

Jamie repeated himself.

"You know I don't know?" Jack said. "Memory?"

"That's not much of a core," Jamie said. "I mean, fun, wonder, hope... fear... And memory? Shouldn't it be more of an emotion?"

"You're thinking way too hard about it," Jack said.

"I have to think now before I forget, I mean... My mom doesn't believe in Santa Claus, but she did when she was little," Jamie said. "So something must happen that makes kids forget. Is it loosing the last baby tooth? Cause if it is she can't have anymore, I mean wisdom teeth count I still see you. Is it leaving home? I'm going to Maine next spring."

Jack frowned. "How could you forget me?" That wasn't a nice thought.

"I don't know," Jamie said. "That's why I try to write it all down, what you tell me about the guardians."

"I thought you had homework?"

"I get to write a story. But I was just wondering. Want to read it when I'm done?"

"Ah..."

Jamie winced. "I'll read it to you."

It wasn't that Jack couldn't read... It was that he'd been taught patiently out of an old bible. He had a ballistic approach to punctuation, and had only known as much as a young man looking at growing up in the colonies would need.

Which wasn't a lot. And the sort of sums you did to balance your accounts.

Jamie knew tricky math, with letters mixed in which Jack instinctively felt was as far from fun as you could get without waking Pitch.

"I'll try to read it tonight?" Jack said. "I need the practice." 

Jamie nodded. 

*****

 

******

 

Time passed. 

Time always does. 

Time doesn't need you to believe in it. 

Time erodes, drags, races, and eventually, Time runs out.

Often sticking you with the bill.  
*****

Jack was there for one of the first incidents.

At least he thought he was. 

It had been ten years, ten winters of being visible, of faces in frost as thank yous and protecting children and...

And Cupcake had walked right onto the ice and when it cracked she hadn't stopped.

No one had. 

Hell she'd jumped to make it crackle again laughing at the sound and Jack had felt all his internal organs hit the roof of his skull and leave a vacuum in his gut as he'd struck the edges o the cracks, thicken the ice.

They complained the thick frantic frost (not his prettiest work) made it hard to skate and he'd told then you didn't skate in ice this thin.

Only Jamie'd heard the edge in his voice.

****

The tooth fairy frowned. She wasn't a math savant by any stretch but she could glance at the sea of fairies sorting and know how many there were to the nearest ten. This was the tenth day of increased tooth intake.

"Is there a new candy trend?" she asked, nose wrinkling. "Some sort of... Chew on jaw breakers thing?" 

What holiday was it? It wasn't anywhere near Halloween, you got a surge between Halloween and Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving you got kids hoarding their teeth to cash in after Christmas.

It didn't pay to be greedy.

Weird surge of blunt impact tooth loss. Hmm.

She held the newest tooth in her hand. It was broken, and it had a friend. She shut her eyes a moment.

Played the last memory it held a few times. Someone shouting hey get down, turning, pain.

Hit in the face riding a bike down a rocky shortcut, somewhere in South America.

Well it happened.

She tried another from the same town.

Riding a bike down a too-steep hill, sheer on the side, falling off falling and-

The memory hit her hard, making her shoulders roll up, and her stomach try for a dry heave.

"Tell me if any... other teeth from, this one," she couldn't quite say his name... "Show up."

The fairies nodded.

She swallowed.

Rolled the tooth. Too young. Hadn't he had an older brother?

"File it and bring me any family members we have on file," she said.  
******

 

This wasn't a good time to talk to North. First frost meant the time for the second checking of the list was over, and winter had reached even the tooth fairies palatial base.

There was a crispness to the air, and the fairies huddled in their sleep around oil lamps that never dimmed.

Bunnymund was probably asleep. He liked to sleep from mid October to new years, and she was privately certain that he liked to pretend those holidays didn't exist.

Busy beat lazy. She gathered a few dozen canisters of guarded memories and went to wake up the world’s grouchiest bunny.  
****

 

_(Nine and a half years ago)_

He woke up the day they gave up on him. He would comment, later, that this was a disgusting example of _drama_.

He woke up, looked into the eyes of the woman holding his hand, looking startled, confused.

And chuckled. 

"Don't worry," he said, and his voice was rich and mild and strangely sympathetic. "I don't care that you're sleeping with my brother, that you have been since before my… ah, a car crash. That explains..."

The explained nothing, he realized.

"I don't suppose anyone knows who I am?"

The woman gave a short scream before collapsing.


	3. The nature of employment.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think everyone should read Hogfather. By Terry Pratchett. 
> 
> If any of the theories on belief remind you of Pratchett, now you know why.

Jamie wasn't gay.

Well, he didn't think he should try to tell people he was gay. Right now he was pretty certain everyone thought he was gay and, you know, closeted and they were either content to leave him in there or waiting for him to tell them on his own.

His mom in particular said she hoped he met someone, and had put too much emphasis on 'someone special'.

Jamie didn't know how to explain the fact that it wasn't that he liked boys it was that he liked... A boy. One specific boy, who was going to be, what, sixteen forever?

Jamie didn't know what age Jack had died at, but he was starting to understand Wendy's dilemma. Had she ever moved on, Jamie wondered, or had she found a man with the same dancing eyes, someone who had echo'd Peter.

Maybe there was someone out there that'd remind Jamie of Jack.

Wow. That was a sorta an asshole thought, really, and whoever reminded Jamie of Jack probably reserved better. 

Jamie started storing hand lotion in the fridge after that.

 

****  
"And here I thought that you were just lazy," she said, derailed a little.

Bunnymund shook himself groggily, and used his hind foot to scratch behind his ear. Glaring. "Oy, alright for you, you get a steady trickle of belief, but that fat red bastard takes over the whole bloody season, people don't bother to think about spring till they're good and sick of winter." His nose scrunched.

She resisted the urge to pet between his little fluffy ears or measure his teeth. Or rub his belly Or. Or anything, really.

He was just so tiny and cute!

And sleepy.

Spring slept, she realized. Well, it always had it was just that he was so comfortable in his skin most of the year she didn't think about it much, but even back in the old, old days spring had slept under a thick blanket of snow until...

An old memory danced for a moment. Red on white, the sun coming back and the first signs of rebirth breaking the crust of the soil, green sprouts like fists punching upwards.

She dismissed it. "Can you pull yourself together? Isn't it spring somewhere?"

"I'm tied right into Easter," he said, stretching. "Most of them are up on the northern half, you know that, Tooth. Northern hemisphere, dominate spring. What's got you off your rotations?"

Picking him up and rubbing his belly would be rude.

"Kids are dying," she said, shaking her head, re focusing. "Kids, our kids, are dying."

"Whooping cough outbreak in the ‘States?"

She shook her head. "No, listen they still believe in us, but… they're... That one."

He held it. Felt the memories out a minute. "That's awful but..." He nose twitched and he looked up, finally all the way awake. "But why'd you get a dead kid's teeth? Who put them under the pillow did he leave them in the morning and die before bedtime?"

"No, one of the other kids scooped them up."

"That's… awful. And the rest of the tubes there?"

"Similar cases," she said. "These are just the one's that I've caught in the last few days, you understand. A very small sample, only the ones that are loosing teeth, and then having those same teeth picked up and put under someone else's pillow. So there's more with just teeth missing, or..." She grimaced. "I don't know what happening. I need to look into it further but there's been a surge of tooth loss and I think they're related? I know they're related. I just don't know how yet. I need to go ask North if there's been any major shifts in the naughty and nice lists but I just… I need help looking into this."

"And you want me to ask North while you go ask Sandy what kids are dreaming of?"

"Exactly. More or less. Yes. Please?" She smiled at him. "Just look into it enough and tell me I'm wrong? I want to be wrong on this, Bunnymund."

"What do you think's happening?"

"I don't know!"

**********(nine years ago)

Nigel. His name was Nigel, they told him.

They showed him drivers license with that name on them, and the face matched the one in the mirror.

Nigel Qamar.

He supposed it was something to work with. 

It just wasn't him.

Funny that a condition like that didn't actually disqualify you from being legally sound enough to get divorced cleanly.

It took six weeks to learn enough about Nigel Qatar to be able to live his life. Memorize the social, the bank account numbers, what his credentials and qualifications were.

After the first two meetings he never had to see the wife again. 

Two more lawyer meetings and one brain scan later he was in a small, cold apartment, watching an angry grey sky rolling in.

The savings would last another six months, if he was stingy.

Then Nigel would have to go out and find a job. It really didn't scare the man. He wondered if it had ever scared Nigel.

**********

Tooth chewed at her lip.

Things were… about the same, but... they hadn't improved.

Jack had been the one that had said the right thing first.

She'd been too upset about dead teeth to even hear it, but Bunny had.

He'd hit Jack in the shoulder, asked him to repeat it. 

"They weren't afraid of falling through the ice," Jack said. 

"Exactly. They weren't afraid. Fear. That bastard’s up to something."

"I… what? Pitch? But he got eaten by horses!" Jack said. "Eaten by his own fear, remember?"

"Well apparently there was enough left of him to try again."

"But it took him like, five hundred years to build up enough power to try that," Jack said, slowly. Thinking. Jack spent a lot of time talking to Jamie, in the winters, and Jamie seemed to think more than any other guardian or avatar of belief. Jamie talked and Jack just listened and tried to keep up. "I mean, he had to really drastically attack dreams and memories before he could even take a crack at Easter?"

Sandy was nodding. Clock, frowny face, moon. Dagger.

Bunny was shaking his head. "No, it's got to be Pitch," he said. "Who else controls fear?"

Mouth, teeth, some sort of small ball that unraveled, like a peeling orange.

"No one, that's who."

Sandy scowled and crossed his arms.

"So what do you want to do, dig him out of his underground caves and beat him up again?"

"Sounds like a start," Bunny said, foot thumping the ground, opening up a passage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN.


	4. Nigel has views on parenting.

********  
(Eight years ago)

Penelope shuffled the papers again. 

"You've already been interviewed by Miller, so this is just a formality but I'm curious. You're very over qualified for this position, Mr. Qatar, what brings you here?"

The man smiled at her. He had dark even skin, and crooked teeth, and his smile was unsettling. "I'm looking to start over," he said. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and he sat very still in the chair.

He did have striking eyes. Honestly when she'd first spotted him she'd spent a moment fretting over the fact she'd skipped blow drying her hair that morning, skimped on make up.

Now that she was talking to him, though....

He moved, and it was like watching the systems kick on. The smile suddenly reached his eyes, leaning in, fingers steepling. "Miss Walker, you're right, I am over qualified for this. Think of it as getting more value for your money."

"I don't understand why you’d want to be here, though," she said. "Starting over? Are you-"

"Nothing illegal. I find myself divorced, single, and in need of..." He stopped, looked up. "I was in a serious car accident about a year ago, that's the hole in my resume," he added. "I woke up... A different person, and I'm trying to work out who that is. The person I… used to be wasn't a bibliophile, but I am. I'm well educated, I'm stable, and I want the job."

She looked down. He was the best qualified applicant they had, that was true. And the other two interviewers had said he was 'deeply knowledgeable'. He'd passed his background check easily.

"We can finish this interview later, if you like?"

"What? Why?" She frowned at him.

"Well, you're obviously going on a date after this, aren't you? That's why you've taken such care with you appearance?" And his smile was sweet and genuine.

It was probably bullshit, but, well, screw it. She could do with one person around here who could deliver a compliment well. And having a momentary bad feeling didn't outweigh the man's degrees even if he hadn't worked with the public often before. She smiled back. "It’s yours if you want it, then. There's a ninety day probationary period."

"I think that's entirely appropriate." He signed everything with a very serene expression.

"And it's temporary?" she said, but of course he knew that.

"Unless Mrs. Lewis becomes a stay at home mother, it's a one year position, I understand," he shook her hand. "I'll be ready either way."

He had cool dry hands, long fingers. A firm handshake.

She watched him gather his things and leave, ready to start on Monday.

********

 

The cave was empty.

Empty and silent.

Like a grave, Bunny was tempted to say.

"Fear can't be dead," Tooth said. "That makes no sense. None. "

"Not fear, just pitch," North said, looking around. There were hoof prints on the walls, burnt into stone, there were hand shaped impressions like someone had used a grip so strong as to bend and deform granite the way most tore bread to cling.

There were long groove when the grip had failed and the owner of those hands had been dragged.

There wasn't blood.

But there was black sticky sand.

North knew what a battleground looked like. 

And a murder scene.

It was amazing what people got up to on holidays.

"How long has he even been gone?" Bunny said. "That bastard, slipping out and now…"

"Something is very wrong," Tooth said, softly. Touching the gouges. "Did we do this?"

"He had that coming!"

"I mean… we let this happen, we locked him up and let his nightmares eat him and now kids are… they're fearless. They're fearless about things they should watch out for. Strangers, dogs, swimming pools," she shook her head. "We're getting isolated cases right now but…"  
"Children haven't been afraid of the boogey man for a few hundred years now, Tooth, not really. Not how they used to be."  
"But they knew he was there," she said. "Do they still believe in him? North, can you still adjust your globe to show each guardian's belief index?"

*****

(seven and a half years ago)

Penelope had been there when it happened.

She hadn't meant to be.

Nigel seemed to have every intention of staying on. He had a knack for getting people to empty their wallets at fundraising dinners, he was strangely charming, distinctive, got there early, left late…

Good value for money, he'd said and she'd had to agree.

And right now she was seeing…

Well she'd had that moment of strange, disquieting chills but she'd watched him closely since then and he seemed genuine.

Right now he was genuinely terrifying. 

"When she asked you about the monster in the closet I wanted you to tell her it wasn't real!"

"It's real to her! That's real enough when you're five!" He was talking loudly. Not yelling, but his voice carried quite clearly.

"I don't want to scare her!"

"Oh, well then. You're right. We shouldn't tell children there's a monster under the bed. That might be scary. While we're editing reality for her, why stop with monsters? Let's pretend nothing bad ever happens to children. There's never a drunk driver that hits a car with a family in it, that never happens."  
The mother DID try to get a verbal foot in edgewise but Penelope doubted that anything short of a blow to the head was going to stop Nigel right now.

"In fact, let's just keep the news off entirely. Surely she'll never accidently hear about something bad happening. It's not as if the news sensationalizes these things, it's not as if you can make the front page with a big enough tragedy," Nigel waved an arm out, gestured. " Let's shield her entirely from the very concept of mortality, that can't possibly backfire."

"Exactly! She doesn't need an imaginary beast to-"

" _Yes! She does!_ Do you know why? Because the monster that lives in her closet and will absolutely flay the skin from her back can be _defeated!_ She can stand up to it! She can hide under a warm enough blanket and it won't touch her, it won't hurt her, she can learn from that sort of fear, and then when she grows UP all the real dangers of the world will never hold a candle to the shuffling breathing she hears right now, at night," he had to stop, take a breath. Smoothed his hair back, and steepled his fingers. Gave the mother an icy look. "The monsters of childhood give children the tools to take on the monsters of adolescence and adulthood. If you don't want her to cower under a blanket, give her a stick and teach her to fight back."


	5. Halloween is awesome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since everyone liked Nigel's speech about the Monsters of Childhood, let me direct you here-  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTyiddyIe9k 
> 
> Let me also reccomend that you read Hog-father and possible Thief of Time by Terry Prachett.
> 
> And while I'm at it, after I had this part written I found a quote by Gaiman, at the beginning of Coraline:
> 
> “Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”  
> ~ Neil Gaiman, writer.
> 
> He was paraphrasing this-
> 
> What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. -- G.K. Chesterton in Tremendous Trifles (1909)
> 
> So it's not a NEW idea, but it's one I subscribe too?

Nigel took over the Tuesday morning toddler story times permanently after that.

The mother who had complained had come back, grudgingly admitting that her daughter had demanded 'monster' traps, and they'd caught a rat in her closet so maybe there had been monsters making noises.

Nigel had informed her that he accepted her apology, and they told the children a hand puppet version of sleeping beauty that had ten tiny pairs of eyes glued to him.

It had to be permanent, because the next week there were twenty.   
*******

 

Jamie opened the window at once. "It's mid-August how are you even here?"

Jack flopped on the floor. "I'm pushing it, okay?"

"What do you need? Ice cream?" Jamie said. "I think we have otter pops?"

"I can chill a room. Ugh. Summer. Who needs it?" Jack stretched out, glanced up. "Your walls are bare."

"Yeah. Packed halfway up to go to college. I told you about that? Oh, but spring came before I could tell you where I got accepted," Jamie smiled. "Maine! So I'll still see you every winter. Promise." he held out his pinky.

Jack hooked it with his own. "I'll see you every winter. In Maine. Alright," he beamed.

"Promise."

"Promise."

"Now why are you here?"

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. It's hot, I get a little forgetful in the heat," Jack took a breath. "Remember when I yelled at you all for the thin ice?"

"Yeah that was a few winters ago," Jamie said. 

"So there's been this… problem with kids forgetting to be afraid of stuff that can kill them," Jack said. "Like thin ice, and… bees."

"That's sort of…" Jamie thought about it. "I don't… recall being unafraid when I should have been scared but…"

"We think it's Pitch. Like, he's gone and fear went with him."

"But it's been… ten years… has this been going on for ten years?"

"It took a few years to even notice!" Jack said. “And it’s not like masses of kids are just walking into traffic," he exhaled. "We think Pitch is dead, like, been killed, and no one knows what that means. Guardians and people like me… well, we come and go but this is… murder."

Jamie thought about that a moment. Stopping and thinking was a pretty good survival trait for someone above ten who still believed in more or less every myth and legend he'd ever heard of. "Where do you go when you go, then? I thought you just ended up invisible and in Pitch's case. You know. A little crazy."

"I don't think this happens often, does it?"

"Well, there's…" Jamie thought about it. "Well, gods fight all the time in old myths," he said. "And mythical creatures sometimes fight but I haven't heard too many stories where, like Krampus kills the Yule cat or anything." He looked at his bookshelf. It was crammed to the brim with fairy tales and myths, legends and lore. Beowolf was next to Grimm, Hero with a Thousand Faces sat next to Harry Potter. "I mean… I can look…" He said. 

"Pitch wasn't a god," Jack said, uncertainly. "I mean you can't kill god."

'Depends on the religion," Jamie said thoughtfully. "I mean, gods kill each other all the time. Or strike each other down. Maybe Pitch is at the bottom of a pit getting venom dripped into his eyes?"

"We checked the pit."

"Well, then…" Jamie said. Gave a tiny shrug. "There's an actual pit? With Loki at the bottom?"

"No, we checked Pitch's pit not… you know, I don't know?" Jack frowned. "I'll go and look if you want?"

"It's a Nordic myth so check northern Europe, maybe Greenland?" Jamie said. "I'll look that up later. I've never heard of a, you know, guardian type myth killing another, I don't think… I mean the villains get ticked in fairy tales a lot but… the ones that… is there a wicked witch? Like a proper one? But she dies in the end so… and the kids got away…" Jamie exhaled. "Next winter can you take me to met the yulecat?"

"Of course," Jack said. "Did you find yourself a fairy circle this summer?"

"Not yet. Still looking."

"Do you really think you'll find dryads?"

"People believed in them once," Jamie said. "Just. You know. Mostly in Europe. Oh, I talked to another Raven spirit, this fall. Putting out the suet helped. This one was on vacation from the west. He told me how he'd stolen fire. And told me I needed more eyeballs in the feeder."

"Bet your mom liked that request."

"The animal spirits are weird. She see's a raven but she doesn't see THE Raven. She just thinks I'm talking to birds and stuff and I can see… all of it." The gold edging to the feathers around the eyes, the metallic cast to the beak and claws… and hearing the voice, of course.   
Raven had sounded like he was laughing, a 'hawhaw' voice and a choppy rhythm to his words. Jamie's wondered if he'd considered going into rap.  
Jack got up off the floor, a fluid push up that transitioned to drifting in the air, like there was an invisible hammock. It made the edges of his sweatshirt ruck up, show a slice of his back. 

Jamie watched a moment. "And the moon?"

"The moon never talks to me," Jack said. Exhaling. "I'll find you in fall. The North wind always knows where you are."

"Alright," Jamie said. "It was really nice to see you so early but I know you hate the warm."

"It makes my head feel heavy. I like to see you too," He gestured. "I'd frost your windows but it'd melt."

"I hope I find something that can help!"

"I know you'll try!"

Jamie watched the wing catch Jack and the he was gone. Like a plastic bag.

Breeze felt good for a moment though.

He took a deep breath. Alright. He'd go. And sit and look up myths till he found one killing another, and what happened to that job.

Right after a cold shower.

 

*********  
(Nine and a half years ago)

"I'm not insane," Nigel said. "I'm probably not sane, either, sanity is determined by the majority, and the majority of people don't feel like they are wearing their bodies like a borrow suit, but I'm sure of myself inside my skin."

The sober, pasty faced psychologist laced his fingers. "You still don't believe you are Nigel Qatar?"

"I believe that I am, I just don't think I will ever… feel like I was. I don't remember it, I never lived that life. I am, now, Nigel Qatar. The fact that I was this person a year ago is something I only know because people keep telling me."

"Your behavior when you woke up…"

"You are the third shrink I have had in as many days, do none of you take notes?" Nigel said, sighing. "Yes, I was very rude to people who I am related to by blood when I woke up. Yes, I haven't seen my wife since the second day I was conscious, no, I will not go to couples’ therapy with her because frankly she has nothing I want. Her company is stressful, and I don't find her attractive." 

"Don't call me a shrink, please, it's disrespectful. I am a psychologist. You're very certain that this won't change, I've noticed. Total memory loss like yours isn't understood and-"

"I want you to sign me off as sane."

"Fundamental things about you have changed, you speak differently, you hold yourself differently-"

"I was, according to accounts, straight before as well," Nigel said, folding his arms behind his back, turning to read the spines of books. "Or at least I gave the impression of heterosexuality. Maybe the strain of repression is what's done it. Repression and guilt over a failure to accept myself. These are some lovely books." 

"Being closeted, even when combined with a serious head injury like the one you sustained-"

"Guilt makes people do funny things, doesn't it? It's amazing the sort of lies guilt produces, anything to feel less responsible," Nigel said, humming. "I don't think just being a bit blunt is much to feel guilty about, and I don't recall any serious transgressions. I never swindled, as far as anyone knows. As an example, I never slept with anyone while they were unable to consent, to the best of anyone's knowledge. "

"I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"I don't have a weakness for redheads," Nigel said, fingers tracing a leather spine, then pulling the book out. "Through the Looking Glass? Really? I suspect I prefer blondes now. I know the consent is important, though. I know, even if I don't recall learning it, that certain categories of people simply can't give consent. Children. Drunks," he hummed. "Patients in fragile mental states. " There was silence. Nigel turned a page, slowly."I'm going to take this book, to read. I'd like my paperwork finished by the morning, or I'll have to find another shrink."

*****

It wasn't the first week of school yet, it was two weeks before it.

Jamie was getting used to the town, it was warm, still, beautiful, and his dorm had a window that would show a small frozen duck pond.

He'd be able to lay out raven treats, too, on the windowsill. It was a ridiculously tiny room but hey, no roommate.

The textbooks stood on the small table like a mountain to be climbed. The price had been painful, too.

Jamie had studied his ass off from the age of ten to make certain that college wouldn't be out of his reach. Most kids, as he understood it, when they got to the 'why does this happen like so stage' got their answers from science.

You looked at frost and asked 'why does it look like that' and you find out it's fractals and other ice crystals things, temperature shifts and moisture, and Jamie knew this was right. 

Accurate. But he also knew that an equally accurate answer was 'Jack Frost makes it happen'.

The truth of the soul, he thought of it as.

So he'd sat down and, at ten, worked out what he could do with his life where that'd be okay. Where no one would think it was strange that he knew sooo much about fairy tales and myths and folklore.

And between teaching and writing children's books, teaching seemed like a sure thing.

But by the time he was fifteen he realized... he didn't really like little kids. Or older kids. Or. Well. Kids. Not that weren't exactly his age, and who wanted to talk about things like that.

So really it was being a professor or nothing. Maybe he'd work out how to write a children's book along the way.

 

********

(seven years ago)

Nigel ran a hand lovingly along the thick, swathed faux cobwebs.

Real candles would burn the place down in minutes in this quantity but the fake ones he'd found created a similar mood.

"You get gleefully into this time of year," Penelope said, amused. "Just because it's your birthday?"

"It's that, a little," Nigel lied. He wasn't fond of lying, so he added a truth to balance it out. "There's something about that first frost," he said. "The way the days quicken. Seeing your breath in the air."

"And the ghost stories."

"Oh, I love ghost stories all year long," Nigel said, smiling. Lacing his fingers behind his back, rolling his shoulders, rolling to the balls of his feet. "But this is the month everyone else wants to hear them."

"Just keep them tame this year until seven?"

"I will read only from the books you have approved until eight pm," he said, raising a hand. "I swear this on my love of stories, hot chocolate, and fashionably morbid details."

She gave him a look, but nodded. "No crying children?"

"None at all," he said. "Don't you know crying attracts bats?" 

"Stop that, does not."

"And that bats? Bats tangle in your hair," he went on, gleefully.

"Stop that they do no that's an old wives tale!"

"All tangled up, going eeeeeee eeeee-" he flapped his arms out.

She laughed at him. "You look harmless now but I've seen you with the lights half off. no crying, and no wet trousers until eight."

********


	6. Deja vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Knowledge equals power…  
>  (…)  
> Power equals energy…  
> People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library.  
> Energy equals matter…  
> (…)  
> Matter equals mass."_
> 
> -Terry Prachett, Guards! Guards!
> 
> If you like this at all you'll love Pratchett

Jamie had it explained to him by the girl at the bookstore like this…

"Don't bother buying the help guide to that class," she'd said, glancing at his list. "It's ninety bucks. And that one's another fifty. Ugh, did you decide to slog through all your general ed at once? Look, just go to the library in town, the old one with the statue garden, and ask the head librarian for a tutoring slot." She was jotting down the address. 

"A statue garden?" Jamie asked. 

It was past midsummer, but sometimes old statue gardens had mossy corners, there were things that lived there, visited. Maybe he'd find his damn fairy circle.

If nothing else Jack liked statues, to jump from one to another, give airy, icy beards to the females, strange snowy hairstyles to the men.

Vaguely obscene snowdrifts on the side of the road like crossed legs.

Jamie was like, half certain Jack had died before flirting had been invented, or he might have thought there was more to them than sophomoric jokes to make the kids giggle and parents use brooms to knock down some of the more suggestive icicles. 

It was a lot more likely he was just reading way too deep into it.

Maybe this year would be a good year to… Hell. Tell Jack he'd like to expand his idea of fun to include a new definition for frostbite.

Jamie’s thoughts alternated between pale skin and dying of hypothermia the whole way to the library.

He had to look for myths about folk spirits stabbing each other to death, after all and science wasn't always his strongest suit, so might as well see what a tutor would cost.

From the school to the library was about a half hour bike ride. From that direction, Jamie found the statue garden, too.

It wasn't a 'garden' so much as… well…

There were some old trees, big and thick. There was a fence, wrought iron and black, gothic stylings set in brick, but it was more to outline the area than keep anyone in or out.

Things were trimmed back, but not tightly groomed.

And the statues were everywhere.

Jamie blinked. For something that was maybe a quarter acre, you could barely see across it, between the trees and the…

Usually, Jamie was certain that they were further apart than this. You were supposed to be able to walk around each statue without having to, you know, sit on another, right?

And there wasn't a theme or…

There was, here, something that looked like a man built by barn swallows who could daub brass. There was something red and gleaming, hot rod red, like a discarded orange peel. Under that were smaller gargoyles.

Some of the statues had plaques, none had been donated more than eight years ago, the little ones looked like they'd been bought it bulk from home depot, and…

It was actually really cool, Jamie decided.

And there was someone singing.

"And I fortunately know a little magic, it's a talent that I always have possessed,"

Took Jamie a second to place that tune, but hey, it was Disney,

It was just being sung by a male. Rich voice, overdoing the personality a little but…

By the time the man was at 'Poor Unfortunate Sooouls,' Jamie was humming along and craning his head up trying to zero in on the singer.

There was a man in the twisting maple tree, half out of sight. Stretching out, actually, a dark shadow in the leaves.

"Hello!" Jamie said, in case the man was knocking down hornet nests. He could see a foot. It was in a very shiny shoe. Nice and dressed, red and black oxford, pinstriped pant leg. Not exactly a gardener.

"Hello yourself. And if you would stand back," And the voice was…

Jamie frowned up. It was familiar, he'd swear he knew that voice.

"Ah, wait, don't stand back put your hands out first," and something was heading his way. Jamie managed to put his hands out, catch it. He was lucky he didn't crush it.

It was a bird’s nest, empty. Jamie turned it right side up, and heard the thump of the man dropping down. 

Manicured hands took the nest back, and Jamie was looking up (and UP) into the catlike eyes of the monster from his childhood.

"But I'm not afraid of you!" Jamie managed, before all the other details could crowd in, like, groomed eyebrows and the crisp vest over the deep red shirt, too much color for Pitch, right? Gold earrings and skin that wasn’t corpse pallid?

"I would hope not?" The man with Pitch's eyes said, eyebrow arching. "It's a lovely summer afternoon, there's people within shrieking distance and I'm not dressed for a murder, fear's not an appropriate response now is it?" he examined the nest. "Oh, good, you didn't crush it. Thank you."

Jamie felt rooted to the spot. "Pitch-" he started.

The man frowned and stepped back. Looking himself over. "Where? I'm certain I didn't get sap on myself," he said. 

Jamie wondered if he was somehow being made fun of. Except that wasn't a nightmare king thing that was more a Jack thing, to tease. "You looked like somebody that I used to know," he said, finally. "My name's Jamie."

"Someone you owe money, clearly," the man said, then bowed, the hand holding the nest tucked in, other arm sweeping out. "Nigel Qamar, I work at the library." 

"Are you the one to talk to about tutoring?" Jamie managed, aware he was staring. No, those eyes weren't… quite… they were actually pale brown. They weren't silvery. That had to have just been in his head, right?

No. They'd been silver, he decided. He didn't doubt his own eyes anymore, that was a good way to stop believing. And was that a cravat? Really?

"Yes, I am," Nigel said, smiling. "What classes are you going to be in? Who sent you to me?"

"Ah, at the book store? And it's just a lot of general ed, I have my class list and-"

"Give it here."

Jamie handed it over. It was summer. It was warm. This man wasn't sweating. Well it wasn't that hot but he'd been up a tree. He glanced around, wondering if everyone could see this man. 

But the girl at the book store… people had seen her, and she'd sent him here…

"Which classes have you nervous?"

"Um," Jamie stalled a little. "All of them? In general?"

"You're not really afraid you'll fail though, that's good. I like self confidence," Nigel's teeth looked normal now. But hadn't they been ragged earlier?

Normal now. Okay. Jamie'd seen through it for a second. Dammit, Jack it was mid AUGUST how was he supposed to get in touch with any guardians? He was going to have to throw rocks into the dream sand. Argh.

… Or use a wisdom tooth.

His mom had through it was weird he'd wanted to keep them but he kept them locked up, they were still HIS teeth…

No. Those were for emergency use only, and he wanted to be SURE, first, of what he was dealing with.

So right now was time for… reconnaissance. 

"Which ones do you have the most experience with?" Jamie asked. "And why the bird’s nest?"

"You'll pass if I tutor you. I have an excellent success rate," Nigel said. "This is for the children's librarian. She likes to have things on hand that they can touch while she reads to them about birds. It makes things more real."

"Oh."

"No eggshells this time. Pity. Come inside and I'll schedule you in, once you have your syllabuses you'll be able to decide when you want what sessions."

Jamie nodded and followed. He'd gather information, and hopefully have enough to report to Jack by first frost. Yes.

That, and intense curiosity.

****

 

Jamie learned the following things about Nige Qamar.

He was in his mid-thirties, in spite of the fact his skin was borderline obnoxiously good.

He got that tidbit from the girl in his Women's Studies class. She seemed to be in college in general to find herself a husband, or at least, that was what she said, and Jamie wondered if she'd read the description for this course wrong or something. She seemed nice enough, though.

Even if she said a few things that made the professor side eye her so hard Jamie had to resist the urge to scoot away. 

His ballroom dance teacher mentioned Qamar as a good person to practice with, since the library apparently had about a fundraiser a month.

His math teacher just had the library written on the board as a good place to find tutors. Jamie raised his hand as asked about Qamar but the math teacher waved a hand. "He'll be booked by now," he said. "Though apparently they do extra emergency cram sessions around midterms. Now everyone, we're going to take a quiz just to see where you all are."

The class groaned automatically. It was tradition.

Geology was actually interesting enough that he forgot to ask. There was something nice and real about rocks. Solid.

And by the time he got to the end of the week he had too much homework to ask around too much.

… Of course he could always go to the library to study. That was half the point of a library. Plus it'd probably have better wi-fi that his tiny, tiny dorm room.

Okay. library. homework.

Scouting out the place, and the man. maybe getting a good enough picture to send to his little sister. She still believed, after all. 

(She was also starting to draw pictures of the Easter Bunny that frankly worried him a little but hell. He wanted a three hundred year old dead guy. Not a great place to judge from.)

It was a really nice library. One of those big old buildings, and it had apparently taken the building next to it as well. There were a lot of rooms, reference rooms, rare book rooms. 

Jamie looked through them, and got the impression that it had at one point been a house? Maybe? That had been turned into a library.

Certainly the men's room and the women's room weren't next to each other at all. And the handicap accessible one was unisex and on the ground floor. 

Jamie found a table, and took it over.

He could look out the window and see the statue garden, it was a little warm. It was nice. He tried to picture the statues covered in snow then focused on his math.

He got all the way through the math, and read 'The Yellow Wallpaper' before the warm air and the cozy silence and the comforting scent of old books knocked him out like warm milk.

In hindsight, maybe not the best story to read before a nap.

When he woke up the sunset was painting the room a shade of orange and the fact it had done the same to his hands made him jump about a food, hitting his bag enough that it started to fall off the table.

A hand snapped out and caught it by the strap. Straightened it out.

"I wasn't trying to startle you," Qamar was saying as his hands became busy straightening Jamie's stack of books. "But I did think I should wake you up."

"I was- um," Jamie's brain stalled. "Time?"

"It's nearly eight," Qamar said. "We're actually closed but I must have missed you on the first walk through. We're only open past seven if something is going on."

"Oh."

'Are you late for a class?"

"Nngh. No. I'm not. I didn't mean to fall asleep I was just-"

"It's very soothing here," Qamar agreed. "Do you need to check these out?"

Jamie eyed the books. And flushed. 'The Stone Butch Blues', sat on the top. 'Tipping the Velvet', 'Rainbow boys', 'Boy meet's Boy'.

Jamie'd read most of them already, but he wasn't about to admit that. It was just a staggering pile of queer literature, was the thing, and of COURSE Qamar-who-might-be-Pitch-who-was-DEFINITELY a librarian would know that and the whole thing totally screamed 'confused kid questioning his sexuality in college' or something and oh god…

"Those aren't mine," he managed, and then, because he tried to be honest and he was a little off balance, he added. "I've already read them. Most of them."

Qamar gave a shrug. "I've turned off the computers, anyway," he said. "You'd have to come back for them tomorrow, and I don't recall any of these having particularly cheerful endings. You'll need something cheerful to counteract the Yellow Wallpaper, certainly. Oh, they'll tell you she symbolically escapes, but only symbolically. If you're not willing to read in very deeply, she's just a broken woman crawling around on the floor." 

"I don't know that my Professor'd accept that."

"You can always tell her it's not your place to decide what a female author meant after the fact. That might shut her up for a bit," Qamar said, cheerfully. "But do a bit of research on bed rest, just in case."

Jamie nodded. Qamar-who-was-similar-to-Pitch-in-many-ways helped him get his things together and walked him to the door. "We haven't had any break ins in a while but that's constant vigilance for you," he added, cheerfully. 

The air was still warm.

Jamie glanced at Qamar. In the doorway he was backlit. The silhouette was. Familiar. The eyes and teeth gleamed. 

Jamie stammered out a thanks for not locking him in, and went back to the dorm.


	7. Bleeding Hearts are Tuesdays.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cool October morning, discussion of belied in general, and making sure the pond's frozen solid.

******

Calling him Mr. Qamar lasted about a week. Nigel would just stop and look at him, with that...  
Bitchy expression. That was really the way to put it. Slightly sour?

So Jamie called him Nigel. Focused on school, and cursed the warm weather. Stupid unseasonable warmth.  
... He joined and environmental group because the hell with global warming.

Though the.. Urgency in getting touch with the guardians was ebbing. Nigel was far to enthused about Halloween to be, you know, human, but.. 

"I wanted to show you something. it's a sort of. Side project," he said, two weeks into October. 

Some people, standing there with an armload of fake spiderwebs and three gallons of fog machine juice, might have asked that he come back later, but Nigel just turned and waited.

Todays cravat, Jamie noted, had little bleeding anatomically correct hearts on it. Must be Tuesday.

"I've got.. A story. Sort of. It's a lot of notes about the world and.. So when I was little," and he winced at the lie he knew was coming. "I really believed in the tooth fairy and Santa and Bunnymund and Jack Frost and all of those, right, so I wrote this, story," he held up the binder. "And I'd like your thoughts?"

"Do you want me to read it then talk to you, or do you want to sit down and take me through it?" Nigel asked. 

"Both?"

Nigel looked at the binger, calculative. "Alright. You're going to be here with me this friday, right?"

"And Thursday?"

"Skip Thursday, I'll use the time to read this," Nigel said. 

Jamie nodded. "I. It can wait till after Halloween?"

"If it could, you would have waited," Nigel said. "I always have time for you, Jamie. Always will. Don't worry about it. Just go put it on my desk."

**************

 

North frowned at the globe.

There were wires and crystals everywhere, wedged into the rathers, wired around mirrors, reflecting moonlight into circles, bending jarred lighting into right angles.

It was showing emotions, now.

And subsets of emotion. It was being a little finicky about fun, switching it to show FUN made the globe glitter and blink like a disco ball, as the rates of enjoyment went up and down and up and down.

One last thump and that evened out though. Blurred. More of an.. Average.

"Alright. Again."

Wonder was, well, normal. There was more wonder than belief in him specifically but that, he felt, was a good thing, that children wondered long past staying up late for him.

Love was very strong, joy was good, hope, anger. All.. Even. Normal. No obvious spikes when he got the yeti's to play back what they could of the last twenty years.

Fear…

Fear rose and then.. Ten years ago it.. Plummeted.

That had been when they defeated Pitch… "This makes no sense," he said, thumping the globe again. "We stopped him, fear of him, not all fear. When he got people to stop believing in us there was no dip in wonder. Or hope."

He ran everything again, hoping for some pattern. Some hint.

Watched the twenty years of fear again. The rise, the fall, the weak pulse of the fear that was left. Like soot on glass. 

Belief in PITCH, or the boogey man or anything else just vanished at the ten year mark.

And fear tapered off..A mere month or so afterwards.

And then pain started to arc up.

It should never be so hard to be a child, North thought as he paused to pry an elf out of the gears. The Guardians did what they could, everywhere but this.. Corrosive element that he hadn't identified yet…

Tooth was starting to report teeth from domestic abuse. In teens. She got wisdom teeth, sometimes. On a rise. Bunnymund was hiding eggs further from things like train tracks and water. Further from roads they might cross, and sheer drops they might tumble down.

Six years ago it had been… well.

They were all most careful now. The first frost came later but the lakes froze deeper, Jack running ragged to keep them all too thick to break through when he could.

The Yeti's were getting good at soft toys. And crochet. Yeti fur was, amazingly enough, hypoallergenic.

 

******

Jamie was on cloud nine.

Okay he'd sort of shown all of the notes he had to Nigel in the hopes some of it would. Jar... Something.

Anything.

But the man had instead been...

He'd liked it as a story, given him a list of publishers, and they'd spent an hour discussing how belief worked.

Just using him as a sounding board was helping Jamie clarify things.

Just talking to someone about it, who didn't know it but didn't write him off.

Okay it was all an 'imaginary world' they were discussing but they were talking in the context of that world, and it was...

They'd ended up talking all afternoon. Nigel'd produced tea like some sort of wizard and jotted down notes. Even found him some more books of folk tales, and Jamie was halfway to his dorm, carrying the binder and feeling gleeful when he realized he could see his breath.  
It hung in the air. He stopped, turned his head.

"You know this day keeps getting better," Jamie said to Jack, and Jack smiled so suddenly that Jamie realized he'd almost walked past him. He felt a really serious pang of guilt, over that.

"How's school?" jack said. "Ready for a snow day yet?"

"Oh, I have a list of dates," Jamie said. 

"Cool. Need help carrying that?" jack always moved light, down from the fence. Taking the overstuffed binder when Jamie nodded. "Hey, this is.. All the stuff, right?"

They were eye to eye now. Amazing what ten years could do.

"Yeah, it's all the stuff," Jamie said. "All my guardians notes and Easter that almost didn't happen and everything. I was showing it to Nigel."

"You showed it to someone?"

"Yeah!"

"You showed it to someone else."

Jamie nodded. "And you need to see this guy," he said. "I mean, you really need to see him."

Jack gave a half shrug. "No I don't?"

"No, I mean you do. I mean, I think I know what happened to Pitch, sort of. I have a theory," Jamie said. "It's going to be cold the next few nights, right? You'll be here? You can see Nigel?" 

"I don't know," Jack said, stalling mid step, turning and drifting backwards instead.

His bare foot left a branching paisley pattern on the sidewalk that Jamie stepped over expertly. 

"What. What about, Halloween? Can you come then? There's like, thirty old pagan spirits that flit around on Halloween and Nigel's put together the library party again this year and apparently it's really popular? And I already have my ticket but I.. Will you be my plus one?" Jamie was still riding high and didn't realize what he'd said till the words were out of his mouth.

"You should take someone that everyone else can see," Jack said. "I'll swing by, though."

"No, no, it won't matter, look, it's Halloween! We'll put a sheet over you people will expect to see you because they'll KNOW there's someone under the sheet!" Jamie said. "I think. maybe. Worth a shot, okay?"

"Look, you can go have fun without me, I mean, we have all winter," Jack said. "You don't need to spend all the cold nights with me."

"But I want too. It's not like I can see you in July without traveling. Please, for me?"

Jack hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah let me go take care of the pond at the park, okay?" he tapped the wall, and frost shot up at brickwork. 

"Halloween, I mean you can-" Jamies said as Jack vanished into the air. "You can visit anytime."

People wondered why Jamie had so many blankets. 

He felt that they'd have that many blankets as well, if they kept the windows cracked open no matter how cold it got.

 

***************

A foreign object in flesh does. A few things.

Irritates. 

Wounds.

And then time heals the flesh but the object remains.

Scar tissues may form around it. Adhesions.

The object might become absorbed.

In this case, both were happening. The soft, light wood nothing more than a twist of scar and pulp now, the black, glass like sharp bit dulled with time, encapsulated. 

Nigel didn't know it was there, of course.

 

**************

Jack watched Jamies window a long time, before reaching out, shutting it.

Humans, living humans, couldn't take cold, like that. Like this. 

Like him.

Halloween. Not on a full moon, but close, and it was a going to be a nice one.

He'd asked Tooth, finally, what made children who believed forget.

"Love, generally?" she said. After a long moment. "You have love and faith in your parents, as a child, and then you have, faith in the guardians, and then you lose that belief as people who have forgotten tell you to move on. You lose your last baby teeth, you gain your wisdom teeth, you start to fall in love with other people. Not.. Romance but you start to love your friends, you realize they have their own worlds inside of them, and you let go of belief."

Jack had nodded. 

"Not everyone does," Tooth added. "But. It's better if they do, sometimes. Don't worry. You won't forget him."

Jack inhaled, slowly. "But he'll forget me."

"That's the way it should be."

"It's not fair."

She'd kissed his cheek. 

Jack could still feel it on his skin.

He frosted the windows so heavily that they were opaque. If Jamie still got up early he'd catch the end of it melting. 

Okay so. Jamie'd let go of him. Jack didn't want to see that, ever, Jamie looking through him.

So he'd.. Go to the Halloween party because, god dammit, Jamie had asked.

Maybe NEXT winter he wouldn't come back. Then again. he'd said that to himself last year.

Jamie'd grow out of him eventually but it didn't have to be tonight. Or next week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really adore the comments, thank you to everyone that's left them.


	8. Lychee's are really hard to find in my area and I have no title for this damn chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always I love comments.
> 
> ANYONE HAVE ANY GUESSES AS TO THE TRUE VILLAIN YET?
> 
> Anyone?
> 
> Also, what are your favorite myths and stories?

Half of the party was going to be outside, and it was supposed to get cold tonight. Jamie'd picked his costume accordingly.

Firemen had big warm jackets, huge gloves. Galoshes worked as boots, and all he'd really needed was to slap reflective tape on his big dark grey jacket and get the hat.  
It was balanced on his heavy wool beanie.

Jack had waved off the sheet. "It's okay if they can't see me. You can." That was enough.

"Okay. Now. Um, two things. Okay?"

"What two things?"

"Don't.. Panic. When you meet Nigel. See him," Jamie said. "It's really important you don't try to freeze him, okay? And the second thing is... Just, Look, I need to go say hi to him, and then we can.. Then you and I can talk. But I want you to, take a good look at him, alright?"

"You mentioned this Nigel last time," Jack said. "Got a crush?"

Jamies mouth made a fine line. "No, I don't. Shut up."

But his ears were turning slightly pink.

"So am I making sure he's good enough for you then?" Jack said. Then stopped. "Wait, you don't actually have a-"

There was a chorus of shrieks from the other side of the wall.

The statue garden wasn't actually visible anymore, in the dark. Not. Really.

There were lights but they flickered. There was the thunderstorm rattle of tin siding being hit by chains rhythmically, low deep hoots. The base of a DJ.

Jamie reached up, tugged at Jack's ankle. "Come on. Feet on the ground. I want to see what it looks like all lit up right and with the sounds on and Nigel kicked everyone out two days ago and set the rest up. He got a special permit for the sound, cause it'll play past two am, there's catering, it was all paid for with donations." 

"And this is a library?"

"It used to be like, a hotel, or a big townhouse," Jamie said. "Remember, don't. Freak out. " 

"Why am I gonna freak out about this guy?"

"It's really hard to explain, okay?" Jamie said. "I mean, it's not hard to explain but it's. Better with a visual? Like the first time I saw him, I saw. Something else but I just see Nigel, now, and I need someone with fresh eyes who can SEE to look at him and tell me if I'm crazy. Hey did you ever go check the holes?"

"What?"

"Pits. In, you know? Snakes and trickster gods?"

"Oh, no, he's doing something else now," Jack said. "Gods are different from guardians, apparently. It's some sort of..." He waved his staff up, let Jamie go up the stairs ahead of him as he tried to ice over the steps. They'd been pretty heavily salted, though. It didn't seem to be working. 

He gave them a kick, anyway. looking around before following Jamie.

"Some sort of what?"

"Well they can. Diversify? Evolve? If Christmas falls out of favor and solstice comes back, the Green man will rise in power but Nick won't? Like, um, the prophet Elijah, he shows up for passover right and he's more, " Jack sighed.

"Are all the religions right then?"

"They are for their followers."

"When did you find this out?"

"I told you I went and found Loki," Jack said. "He's a trickster god, they don't really.. MIND, no one seeing them? Rules for gods are different."

"But how are you, you know, not a god?"

"Don't know." jack stopped, looking up. "Wow. this place didn't look like last week."

Jamie nodded. "I know, right? I couldn't figure out why a library that doesn't serve booze had such high ticket prices in a college town but.."

It looks disheveled. And malicious.

There were green and yellow lights glimmering out of the cracks, there were cobwebs, the windows were dirty, and there were silhouettes moving in them. And fog leaking out the windows. pouring down the steps. Low bass music was playing somewhere.

"That's pretty impressive," jack said. 

"Thank you," came a voice from above. "I strive to impress." 

And an arm swung down, long fingers catching the crook end of Jacks' staff, pulling it up into the darkness. 

"I'll hand it right back," the voice went on, and there was a thumping noises as something got hit. There was a low purr as a fan kicked on and a long black banner was suddenly alive in the air.

Nigel dropped down, light as a feather.

Jack and Jamie both stared. 

It was, Jamie reflected, probably a good thing that Nigel had a mask on, or Jack might have panicked. 

The black shirt was open to the navel. Probably further, but that's where the leather belts started. It was a rather large amount of skin, and it took Jamie's brain a second to process. 

"Zorro? I thought you were going to be something scary?" he said, finally. Swallowing. 

Jack was still slack jawed. 

"I thought I'd go as your nightmare king, but after oh, three, four years ago I have to dress as a good guy before ten," Nigel spun Jack's staff and held it out, bowing. "And you must be Jack Frost, from Jamie's book. I'm impressed by the bare feet but let's get you inside before your toes all snap off."

"You can see me?" Jack managed.

"Good job staying in character," Nigel said. "Come on in. Have your tickets, Jamie?"

Jamie handed them over. And kicked Jack lightly in the shin to keep him quiet. "You um... The fan?"

"You can't count on mother nature to be properly dramatic when you need it. Sometimes you need to make your own magic," Nigel said. "Go get some of the food before we're all out of the chocolate skulls. they're very good this year."

Jamie caught jack's arm, pulled him away. 

"He could see me!"

"Yes?"

"He could see me!"

"I told you! Did you- shit, you didn't see his eyes cause of the mask, did you?" Jamie sighed. "Come on, let's go see if anyone else can see you and get you some candy."

No one could.

They checked.

Jack frosted over the punch, but everyone thought that was cool. He did it out of habit, really. Still feeling tense and jumpy. 

So it took a while for him to ask. Look he'd been distracted.

"You were.. What about his eyes?"

"Oh. They're um. Well they're normally, sort of hazel brown? Like, brown but when the light hits them you can see other colors but when I first saw them they were gold."

"You really pay close attention to his eyes don't you?" Jack said. "And he can see the things you see."

"I don't know, but he can see you and we'll have to corner him later. This place is kinda packed."

And people kept going through Jack, which Jack wasn't a fan of. 

Jamie caught his hand, laced his fingers and went up a staircase. Had to side step an amorous couple. Three flights of steps and it still wasn't long enough, Jamie felt, to be holding Jack's hand.

Jack had long cool fingers but he didn't actually cause frostbite. 

"Come on there's a window up here we can get to the .. To where the dj's set up," Jamie said. "And the control panels. We'll have a good view." He looked at Jack. "You haven't been to an all Hallows with me, yet, have you? My favorite holiday."

"I know it's your favorite ," Jack said. 

It was a dangerous night, people got silly. He should be out dealing with that NOW, but Jamie was holding his hand and well, it was cold but hopefully there wouldn't be that much black .

"Did I ever say why?"

"Because. Because sometimes other spirits show up?" 

Jamie nodded. "Exactly," he said. 

Sitting on the ledge, watching Nigel put on a shadow puppet show .

They both leaned into each other a little, shoulder to shoulder. 

The puppet show was more or less Beowulf, modified, the monsters mother a tentacle laden knot of things (from here, a knot of rubber snakes, on the other side of the curtain,   
nightmares).

"Do you see it?" Jamie said, elbowing Jack hard.

"He just looked like a man."

"No, no. Look at his shadow," Jamie said, sounding excited. "Look at his shadow."

Someone screamed. Happy and frightened screamed.

And Nigel didn't laugh. But his shadow did, smile a gash of light. 

Jack tilted his head. "How does a shadow have eyes?"

Round, as if it wasn't Nigels shadow, as if it was one of his paper shadow puppets.

And the hair was.. different, maybe just the way the sheet was wrinkled but...

"So he IS Pitch," Jack said, hands tight on his staff. "you said you thought you knew what happened to him not that you had FOUND him!"

"Except he ISN"T but. He's. Connected. Look, maybe go ask Tooth? Nigel was a kid once, right? I mean if he was you can go get his teeth?" Jamie reached his hand out, gripped Jack's.

Felt his palm go numb, half sticking. There's been just enough sweat on his hand to freeze.

"I can take him out from here," Jack said. "I can hit him with a snap freeze. I'm good at them now I can get two feet down in ice in an eye blink. He wouldn't even feel it."

"Can you freeze a shadow? It's just, dark. A lack of light, you can't freeze that you'll just kill Nigel what if that free's the shadow?" Jamie said, talking fast. His hand hurt. "What if that kills Pitch? Is that really the goal I thought him being gone had made things worse?"

"Just because you like the guy," Jack said. "Look at the MOUTH there's teeth can no one else see that? is this a.. What'd you call them?"

"Belief artifact," Jamie said. "no one see's it cause it can't be real. Except tonight they might, but they'd think it was a trick. it's halloween it'd be a pretty awesome trick but we're on this side of the sheet we'd see how he's doing it, right?"

"I think I need to go interrupt Nick."

"Tooth! Go to Tooth first," Jamie said.   
********

 

Nigel was a bit sad, later, that Jamie hadn't stuck around.

But he'd had that charming friend with him, and that had young love written all over it. 

Nigel was. Contemplative.

And tired. It was nearly dawn, after all.

He was still sweeping. He'd have more help, later in the day, after all. But for now.

"Gonna wash that man right outta my hair," he sang as he swept. Confetti was everywhere. he was half done. 

With this stretch of pavement, cleaning in careful sectors. he'd rake a while until it was after seven and then he was leaf blowing the rest.

Then let's see, library opened at ten. the other staff would take the extra food, and what was left would be taken like students.

No such thing as leftovers, when you were dealing with students. Nigel'd already stowed away the things he was looking forward to snacking on.

There was a strange flutter. Like wings. 

He turned his head. Gave Jack his best, charming smile. "Did you forget something here last night?"

Jack shook his head. "No. I came back to talk to you."

Nigel arched an eyebrow and did not preen in place. "Did you now? Don't suppose I could persuade you to pick up a broom while we talk? Or a rake? Just set your staff down over there. What did you want to talk about, Jack? Or is that not your name?"

"No, my name's Jack why wouldn't it be?"

"Sometimes when people like Jamie write their friends into their novels they change the names a little."

"People like Jamie?"

"Young men in love who also write," Nigel said.

"Who's he in love with then?" Jack asked, face screwing up a little.

"Ah. it's like that," Nigel hummed. "To be young and stupid again. I don't recall ever being that young or stupid but I have a flawed memory. So, you came to speak to me, still wearing what you wore last night. What can I help you with, Jack?" 

"I just... Sort of wanted to see you again. Jamie talked about you a lot."

"Did he now?" Nigel smiled. "He only mentioned you in his story, it was a bit odd to find out you were real."

"Of course I'm real!" Jack said. "You can see me!"

"One, people see all sorts of things that aren't there, " Nigel said, raising one finger. "And two, most people are real. I've noticed it seems to be a trend." 

"You'd think that but... I just wanted to know what the. Deal with you and Jamie was," Jack said. 

"Because of the way he talks about me?"

"Yeah. He acts like you're not dangerous."

"Oh. Dangerous. That's odd way of putting it. Do I seem menacing to you?" Nigel leaned in a little. "Mm, no, you're not afraid of that. You're afraid of the same thing Jamie's afraid of, aren't you? How odd."

"You can see what people are afraid of, can't you? Their deepest, darkest fears?"

"I've got a knack for it. They're usually pretty easy, really. Most people are afraid of being alone," Nigel shrugged. Then leaned in and forward. Looking jack in the eyes. "That's you, isn't it? One of them. but mostly you're afraid of him not believing in you."

"And he's afraid of that too?" Jack said, jaw setting. "You're still not scaring me."

"I don't want to scare you, you might run off and then what would I have to look at?" Nigel straightened up. "But you were asking what sort of relationship I have with Jamie, weren't you?"

"You've got a relationship with him?"

"You don't?"

"No, I don't," Jack said. "And neither do you!"

"So we're both available, then," Nigel said. "That's a bit of a pity for Jamie." 

If Nigel had suddenly singing a ballad about a hedgehog in French while juggling geese, Jack would have at least understood what was going on, if not the why. He scowled, brow furrowing. "I know what you are," he tried. "So does Jamie!"

Nigel's head tilted and his eyes narrowed, slightly. "A lot of people here know what I am," Nigel said after a long moment. "It's not as if I make great efforts to hide it. Does that make you uncomfortable? Knowing we're the same, no matter how hard to tamp it down? Oh, there's a nice primal fear, fear of being different and alone. You're cute but you're a little slow, aren't you, Jack?" He shook his head. "I'm glad Jamie knows what I am, at least, but does he know what you are? Do you know what HE is?"

"I'm not afraid of you," Jack repeated, knuckles white. "You stay the hell away from him, he's a good. He is good." 

"And you're the keeper of all that's good now?" Nigel said. "The undisputed arbiter of all that is good? and what do you think makes you any sort of judge?"

"I don't know who you think you're fooling with that.. Clothes and that new face, acting like you don't know who you are-" Jack swung the staff around, and Nigel blocked it with the back of his hand. 

Nigel hissed, and it sounded like a cat, almost. For a second his pupils were tall and thin, then they were normal again. Jack recoiled. "Get off of library property before I call the authorities," Nigel said. "You unstable little prat, you want to talk about what's bad for Jamie? What about you is good for him? You're afraid he'll forget you, that he'll stop believing in you and I can tell you know the day he lets you go will be one of the healthiest days of his life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wait. This chapter did have a title.
> 
> it was called 'HeartBreaker'


End file.
